The Junior Company of the National Ballet (Holland)
I didn’t know what to expect when I decided to go to the junior company of the National Ballet of Holland. Just two years ago I’d gotten curious about seeing more dance shows. I thought I’d ease on into this by checking out an Australian company that combined modern dance with circus stunts. Somehow I’d expected to see what dancers out on the street do when you’re in tourist areas like the Vegas strip, but CIRCA! really brought the circus to a stage. It wasn’t fully my cup of tea, so it took two years to get me back in the theatre to check out another dance show. This time I got pleasantly surprised.
I’ve never been interested in classical ballet, though many people had told me it was well worth checking out. The junior company initially confirmed my fears with the opening of their show. They showed all the moves I would do when I pretend to be a ballerina with my 5-year old niece. If that had continued for the whole show, I probably wouldn’t have stayed to see the whole show. However, the company shows bits and pieces of existing ballets as well as a few new ones created by upcoming choreagraphers. So quickly after the first piece the company took upon them a more dramatic dance. It was beautiful to see and kept me captivated right up until the end.
Pretty soon after, a piece of the famous Swan’s Lake was shown. That too was beautiful to see. The wide range of emotions in the dances become very clear and are cleverly planned throughout the show. You get to see videos of the rehearsals and then you see one dance itself. Sometimes the dances are funny and at other times, romance or drama takes over. Because of seeing the instructions the dancers get in the videos you look critically when they actually perform. You can tell there’s still a few things that they have to learn, but all together I was well impressed by their talent.
Not just the dances have a junior status. A lot of the crew are also upcoming, which resulted in a few minor technical errors (lights not being switched on and music not starting on cue), but like true professionals the junior company didn’t seem to suffer from that all. Definitely something worth seeing and who knows, maybe now I’ll check out a real ballet.
